Main menu

Tag Archives: basil

“I seem to be making a lot of vegetarian dishes lately. It’s forced me to come up with new recipes to make things interesting. One of my favourite ingredients is eggplant. It’s also the only thing I haven’t been able to kill in my garden and have had a plentiful supply for months. You can use it in eggplant parmigiana, baba ganoush and vegetarian lasagne but I also love roasting it and stirring it through a pesto pasta. Having just bought a Thermomix (Instructions included) I decided to make an easy tomato sauce then stir the roast eggplant and a few other ingredients through. It was an instant favourite at our house and will satisfy those pesky vegetarians when they drop over. Enjoy!”

(Photo by Gary Donald Corbett)

Ingredients

700g eggplant

Olive oil

Flaked sea salt

1 large red onion

4 cloves of garlic

400g tinned tomatoes

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

2 tbsp white sugar

60g grated parmesan cheese

60g sour cream

40g roasted pine nuts

60g sundries tomatoes

1/2 cup basil leaves

Shaved parmesan

Method

Cup the eggplant into 1.5cm cubes and place on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with flaked sea salt. Bake in a 180 degree C oven for 30 minutes or until slightly browned. Flipping the eggplant once during this time helps get an even colour.

Add the spaghetti to a medium saucepan of salted boiling water and cook until al dente. Drain when cooked.

Cut the sundries tomatoes into strips and roughly shred the basil leaves. Put aside with the roasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan.

Finely chop the onion and garlic and fry in a medium saucepan with a small amount of olive oil until translucent.

Add the tomatoes, Dijon mustard and sugar to the onions and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the sauce is still hot add the parmesan cheese, then using a stab blender, blend the mixture until you get a smooth sauce. Just before serving add the sour cream and stir through the sauce.

Drain the pasta and in a large bowl stir through the sauce, roasted eggplant, sundries tomato strips and half the basil leaves.

Once served into pasta bowls sprinkle on the pine nuts, remaining basil and shaved parmesan.

Thermomix method

Cup the eggplant into 1.5cm cubes and place on a baking tray covered with baking paper. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with flaked sea salt. Bake in a 180 degree C oven for 30 minutes or until slightly browned. Flipping the eggplant once during this time helps get an even colour.

Add the spaghetti to a medium saucepan of salted boiling water and cook until al dente. Drain when cooked.

Cut the sundries tomatoes into strips and roughly shred the basil leaves. Put aside with the roasted pine nuts and shaved parmesan.

Add onion and garlic to Thermomix bowl and process on speed 4/3 seconds

Wipe down the bowl with a spatula then add 2 tbsp olive oil and cook for 6 minutes/100 degrees/speed 0.5

“As part of my push to lose weight and get fit and healthy I’ve been redesigning some of my favourite recipes with less fattening ingredients. Obviously I want to do this without losing the flavour hit that comes with high fat foods and cooking techniques so I can confuse my taste-buds into thinking they’re still being spoilt. I have a recipe from my classical music range called “Nutcracker Chicken”. It consists of a chicken breast that’s been filled with a combination of goats cheese, blue vein and pistachios, coated in macadamia and panko crumbs, then fried and baked. I serve it with roast capsicum sauce, roast potatoes, asparagus spears and honeyed pine nuts. YUM! I’m getting hungry just thinking about it! …but for now here is a much healthier alternative that packs a huge amount of flavour in the sauce and chicken filling. Enjoy!”

Stuffed chicken breast ingredients

1 leek

4 garlic cloves

8 mushrooms

150g sun-dried tomatoes

Splash of white wine

zest and juice from half a lemon

1/3 cup pine nuts

1/2 cup basil leaves

6 chicken breasts

12 slices of prosciutto

Clean the leek then quarter and dice. Add to the pan with a small amount of olive oil. Cook until leeks have softened slightly.

Finely dice the garlic and add to the pan for a few minutes.

Dice the mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes and add to the pan with the white wine.

When liquid has reduced to almost nothing remove from the heat and stir in the pine nuts and diced basil. Set aside to cool.

Cut a cavity in the chicken breast and put stuffing inside.

Wrap 2 slices of prosciutto around chicken to keep the stuffing in and refrigerate until ready to cook.

Heat a small amount of light olive oil in a pan and on medium heat cook the chicken on each side until prosciutto has cooked (about 1 minute per side)

Transfer to a baking dish and cover with foil. Bake for 20 minutes at 180 degrees c or until chicken is cooked all the way through.

Roast Tomato and Capsicum Sauce

2 red capsicums

6 tomatoes

1 onion

Light olive oli

Salt

Pepper

3 tbsp kecap manis

Cut the tomatoes into quarters and remove stem end.

Cut capsicums into quarters and remove stem ends and seeds.

Peel and quarter onion.

Place all in a roasting dish and drizzle with light olive oil and some salt

Roast for 30 minutes in a 220 degree c oven or until capsicum skins start to blacken.

Let cool slightly and transfer to a blender adding the kecap manis. Don’t throw out any of the remaining juices from the pan as you will use them later!

Blend on high until smooth. Season to taste. (If you want a smoother sauce pass the mixture through a drum sieve)

Vegetables

4 carrots

12 asparagus spears

Peel and cut carrots into battens and transfer to the roasting dish you cooked the tomatoes in and coat with the juices. Add a little more olive oil and salt in needed.

Bake in a 200 degree c oven for 30 minutes stirring occasionally.

Cut asparagus into thirds and steam until cooked.

Plating up the dish

Gently reheat the sauce and put a generous smear on the plate.

Cut the chicken breast into 3 rounds and lay onto of the sauce (You can save the off-cuts for lunch tomorrow!)

Put a pile of asparagus and carrots on the plate and garnish with 2 basil leaves.

Hello, my name is Craig.

Craig Allister Young is a cellist, orchestrator, arranger, singer and song-writer who works with the QLD Symphony Orchestra in Brisbane.
Over the past 20 years he has orchestrated music for most of the major orchestras in Australia, composed music for the Sydney 2000 Olympics,
toured a cabaret ensemble around QLD and for the past three years has been a musical director and cellist for the QLD ballet. His passion for cooking
saw him embark on his latest adventure as a top 24 contestant in the hugely popular TV sensation Australian Masterchef 2011. It is from this that the idea of
"Musical Menus" materialised as a way of combining his love for music with his passion for creating imaginative culinary dishes. Bon Appetite!